Record investment for proptech
HARNESS Property Intelligence – www.harnessproperty.com – the new commercial property search portal underpinned by an advanced data platform, has launched today. The portal has already secured £3m, a record amount of equity seed funding for a proptech business from private investors.
HARNESS has been created with commercial agents and surveyors at its heart. It offers a different approach to other portals, using advanced data science and high-quality data sourcing to support commercial agents and surveyors, allowing them to work more efficiently and receive better quality user enquiries and search insights.
Unlike other search portals, HARNESS has designed at its core a behavioural-driven user experience at the outset of each search. This enables businesses and investors to undertake differentiated searches relevant in each of five main sectors: office, retail, industrial, leisure and land. This important differentiation from other property search portals allows HARNESS’s searchers to reach decision points more effectively.
Even for a start-up, HARNESS’ speed to market is impressive. In just five months of being founded the team has developed and launched an operational portal and data platform to further build upon.
The company and its developments planned for introduction over the next few years is led by CEO Ben Mein. He has almost 20 years’ commercial experience of digital and data transformation in media, telco and ad-tech industries. Mein previously worked as head of digital strategy at News UK, commercial director at The Nielsen Company and Telefonica Digital UK, and CEO of real-time sales intelligence platform Companybook.
Mein said: “Commercial agents and surveyors are under increasing pressure today to demonstrate their value, particularly in context to fending off technology companies openly purporting to remove them from the deal cycle.
“This industry is complex and very much driven by people, and respecting and enhancing commercial agents and surveyors’ relationships with their own clients is at the core of everything we do.
“Using our advanced platform in conjunction with other like-minded partners will enable them to remain the authority and guide in every commercial property transaction.”
Mein is supported by a team of proven experts including Chris Noden, CTO, who has extensive experience in working with fast growth, technology-led start-ups such as Gamesko, MOFILM and Monstermob; and Dr. Lee Mollins, chief data officer, who was previously Data and Analysis Director at Hometrack, following many years working with several global technology businesses.
Mein added: “We have developed a tech platform that offers our clients a step-change in the way the commercial sector can access and use data to significantly improve the transaction cycle.
“However, our technology approach is designed around commercial agents and surveyors’ day jobs, not the other way around. With the UK market looking uncertain, this is the right time for us to collaborate with commercial property professionals to harness knowledge and help them unlock market potential more efficiently and so achieve better results for their clients.”
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